Family
by Follow-The-Firefly
Summary: In which Suzaku tries to convince Lloyd and Cecile that they are like a family. Rated T for Teen. ONESHOT


**Disclaimer: If I owned CG, Nina wouldn't exist.**

**Hey! Zephyr here. College hasn't completely devoured my soul yet, so I bring you another CG oneshot! I finally finished R2 for the first time a week ago and have been working on this off and on for the last week. I hope it's decent. The end is kinda rushed, but I think it works. :) Let the deadly tale begin!**

"Lloyd! Suzaku! Dinner's ready!"

Lloyd tore his eyes away from the computer screen and looked at the clock. Five o'clock. This was a bit early for dinner. which meant that Cécile had probably left the food more undercooked than normal.

"Are you coming, Lloyd?" Cécile's voice could be heard from the kitchen. "Don't say you're skipping out again."

The scientist sighed before he pushed his chair back from the desk. Lloyd rarely enjoyed any of Cécile's cooking, but he had to at least pretend that he liked it. The only thing Cécile could actually make were desserts, which was made even easier when she used a cake mix which was already prepared in a box.

"Lloyd!"

Cécile's voice came into the computer room, sounding very much like she would march into the room and drag the scientist out to the kitchen if she needed to. Lloyd had learned by now that he shouldn't let Cécile get this angry. The last time such a thing happened, Lloyd had ended up needing stitches on his forehead.

Lloyd took no time in responding, "On my way, Cécile-kun," before darting swiftly out of the room.

When he reached the kitchen, Lloyd found Suzaku grabbing the plates from the cupboard and Cécile pulling some sort of dish from the oven.

"About time, Sensei." Suzaku said.

"I got distracted." Lloyd said, as if it really made a difference.

"You always get distracted." Cécile said as she grabbed a few hot mats. "Let me guess. Something to do with the computer?"

"Exactly." Lloyd responded cheerfully as he pulled open a drawer and grabbed some silverware.

"I swear, you never get off of that thing." Cécile shook her head. "You'd think being on it at work all day would be enough for you."

"Apparently not." Suzaku responded as he set the plates on the table.

"How did the practice go today, Kururugi-kun?" Lloyd asked.

"The same as the last years' worth of answers, Lloyd." Suzaku said over the sound of Cécile opening the door to the fridge. "Can't I do something different for once?"

"Not until we finish the upgrades to the Yggdrasil drive." Lloyd shook his head. "You wanted a customized Lancelot frame, didn't you?"

"Actually, I don't know how you got that idea." Suzaku said as he placed some napkins on the table. "I said nothing of the sort."

"You did sort of launch into it yourself, Lloyd." Cécile said.

"I can't start a new frame without reason?" Lloyd questioned as Suzaku and Cécile sat down at the table while he reached into the fridge for some orange juice.

"Nope." Cécile shook her head.

"So what is it this time, Cécile-kun?" Lloyd joined the other two at the table.

"Grilled chicken with a special kind of sauce." Cécile responded.

"What kind of sauce?" Suzaku asked hesitantly.

"That would ruin the surprise." Cécile said.

"Oh great."

Lloyd remembered the last time Cécile did something like this. She had made steak with a sauce of vinegar, turmeric, grape juice and copious amounts of garlic salt and lemon juice. He suspected that Suzaku had gotten food poisoning due to the fact that the steak was almost raw and he himself had been sick for most of the next day.

"I heard that, Lloyd." Cécile shot a glare in the direction of the scientist.

"But I didn't say anything!" Lloyd exclaimed loudly.

"I could hear it in your voice." Cécile said.

Suzaku had already started eating the chicken while Lloyd and Cécile had been bickering. After swallowing a mouthful of chicken, he said, "It's not that bad."

"Oh really? Lloyd raised an eyebrow in confusion.

"Always the tone of surprise." Cécile rolled her eyes.

"So how was the testing on the Yggdrasil, Cécile-kun?" Lloyd asked as he took a steak knife to the chicken.

"You tell me." Cécile said. "You were there with me."

"Oh I was, wasn't I?" Lloyd seemed to have forgotten this.

"You were in there most of the day!" Cécile exclaimed. "How could you have forgotten?"

"He has the memory of a fruit fly." Suzaku shook his head.

"I do not!" Lloyd protested.

"Oh really?" Suzaku raised an eyebrow. "Then why do you keep asking me where you've put things or what you came in the room to do?"

"Because I like to make sure that you know what I'm doing." Lloyd obviously came up with that answer quickly.

"Who cares what you're doing?" Suzaku exclaimed.

"I do, quite obviously." Lloyd said after swallowing some chicken.

"So it was a boring day after all." Cécile said. "No surprise there."

"It wasn't boring!" Lloyd protested.

"Oh yeah?" Suzaku raised an eyebrow. "What did you do that was so eventful?"

"I almost set the new frame on fire." Lloyd nodded happily.

"The Prometheus model?" Cécile questioned, knowing that his was another of Lloyd's frames that was meant to be working with the Lancelot models. "What did you do this time?"

"I just tried to install the power cells when it caught on fire." Lloyd said, his finger tracing around the rim of his glass of orange juice.

"Oh my God…" Suzaku said slowly.

"Please tell me that you didn't let the whole frame burn to the ground." Cécile said in a sort of pained voice.

"Well…" Lloyd was obviously hiding something.

"Lloyd!" Cécile snapped.

"What?" Lloyd whined.

"You're telling me that the Prometheus is gone?" the steak knife that had been in Cécile's hand before Lloyd's confession was in her fist with the sharp end pointed in Lloyd's direction.

"I fell off the ladder and lost consciousness when I hit the ground." Lloyd shrugged. "When I came to, the fire was out, but it was still smoking. What did you honestly expect me to do while I was unconscious?"

"Just tell me the bad news." Cécile sighed. "How much is destroyed beyond repair?"

"The armour plating is gone, but the basic structure is still left." Lloyd said.

"Prince Schneizel isn't going to be happy about this." Cécile said before taking a bite of chicken.

"At least the lab didn't burn down!" Lloyd was clearly trying to make the situation better, but his attempts weren't helping very much.

"This time." Cécile said. "I'm still convinced that you're a bit of a pyro."

"Probably." Lloyd said. "I do like setting things on fire."

"It sounds like you have a bit of a problem." Cécile said. "Are you sure that you wouldn't like some help with that?"

"No thanks, I'm fine." Lloyd shuddered at the sheer notion of Cécile doing such a thing.

"You know what I've just realised?" Suzaku spoke for the first time in several minutes.

"What's that, Kururugi-kun?" Lloyd asked.

"That Lloyd's completely insane?" Cécile offered.

"We've all known that one, Cécile." Suzaku said.

"What is it?" Lloyd finished his glass of orange juice and stood from the table to obtain some more.

"We're kind of like a family here." Suzaku said.

Cécile stared at Suzaku while Lloyd froze with his hand on the door to the fridge, a curious expression on his face. What in the world was Suzaku talking about? Normal families didn't chase each other around the lab in wheelie chairs, nor did they scream random obscenities across the room at whoever had the remote control for the more simple Knightmare frames.

"What are you talking about, Suzaku?" Cécile frowned.

"Yes, do explain." Lloyd had procured his orange juice and was obtaining some tobacco sauce from the cupboard in an attempt to make Cécile's cooking taste a little better. "I'm curious as to how you came to this conclusion."

"Well, it's partially the way that we interact with each other." Suzaku said as he cut into the chicken on his plate.

"Most families don't fight each other randomly." Cécile said, referring to Lloyd and Suzaku's random spurts of sparing where they literally got into fist-fights, mostly to ease Suzaku's boredom and to ensure that he wasn't wasting his training.

"And I've never heard of a family that liked to have random bonfires in the middle of the day." Lloyd said as he rummaged around for the tobacco sauce.

"I meant during times like this." Suzaku said. "Our conversations are kinda like family situations."

"How do you figure?" Cécile asked before finishing her chicken.

"Well, Lloyd always asking how our days were, even though we're together all day." Suzaku said.

"That's just a habit that Cécile-kun and I got into when we were in college and didn't see each other all of the time." Lloyd had given up on the tobacco sauce and had moved on to the pantry in hopes of finding the steak sauce. "I just included you in it when you joined the ASEEC."

"And the way that Cécile always cooks most of the meals." Suzaku continued.

"Which she probably shouldn't." Lloyd muttered under his breath.

"We'd starve if I didn't cook." Cécile said. "Lloyd's too lazy to even get a take-out pizza."

"I can feed myself just fine." Lloyd said.

"You can't live off of pudding, Lloyd." Cécile said.

"I did for a month in grad school." Lloyd retorted.

"That's not the point." Cécile said before she turned back to Suzaku. "I like cooking and I have you two here to try my recipes."

"But we don't always want to try them." Lloyd finally emerged from the pantry with a bottle of steak sauce in hand. "I mean, I love you, but I don't always want to eat ham and turkey sandwiches with olive oil and lemon custard."

Suzaku stared at the scientist for a few seconds before saying, "Hang on a minute. What did you just say?"

"Way to go, Lloyd." Cécile rolled her eyes. "We'll have to tell him now."

"Well, apparently I just did." Lloyd shrugged as he joined the other two at the table. "Problem solved!"

"Did he just say what I think he said?" Suzaku's eyebrows were furrowed with frustrated confusion.

"Unless you've suddenly become deaf, I'd say so." Lloyd nodded as he drowned the chicken in the steak sauce.

"When did this happen?" Suzaku was obviously a tad confused with the situation. "How long have you two been together?"

"Since the beginning, really." Lloyd said. "As long as you've been here, anyway."

"And how have I not noticed this?" Suzaku questioned. "Am I that oblivious to things?"

"Apparently." Lloyd nodded.

"Like you're one to talk." Cécile shot Lloyd a glare before turning to Suzaku and saying, "We, or at least I, didn't want to overwhelm you when you first got here."

"But I've been here for almost a year!" Suzaku exclaimed.

"Even I thought it was a bit obvious." Lloyd shrugged. "Then again, you did have a lot on your mind when you first got here."

"Good point." Suzaku shrugged.

"Look at it this way, Cécile-kun." Lloyd turned to his assistant. "We don't have to be so ridiculously awkward anymore."

"That's a relief." Cécile agreed. "You can get so touchy sometimes, Lloyd."

"I don't think he really wants to hear about that." Lloyd said.

"That explains why you two act like the parents around here." Suzaku said. "You certainly fight like a married couple, anyway."

"See? I'm not the only one who noticed." Cécile said to Lloyd, who was ripping apart his chicken with a steak knife.

"I didn't say anything about the matter." Lloyd said.

"I could be entirely wrong about all of this." Suzaku said. "I haven't exactly been in a family environment and am simply going off of what I see."

"I guess I can see where you're coming from." Cécile said.

"What brought this on anyway, Kururugi-kun?" Lloyd frowned.

"Watching you two arguing just reminded me of it." Suzaku shrugged.

"Interesting." Lloyd said.

"You always find something interesting." Cécile said.

"That's because it usually is." Lloyd said. "I wouldn't call it interesting if it wasn't."

"I can sense an argument starting." Suzaku carried his plates from the table and placed them in the dishwasher. "I'm heading off before the next argument starts."

"Who said anything about arguing?" Lloyd questioned as Suzaku walked into the rec. room.

As Suzaku turned on the TV and started to load _Assassin's Creed_, he heard Cécile scolding Lloyd for some senseless thing that he'd done. They were like a family, even if the "parents" didn't want to admit it.

**Why do none of my fanfics turn out how I want them to? Ah well. I love the bickering between Lloyd and Cecile. Maybe I'll have another one or two up soon. It depends on how college goes. Hopefully I'll get a chance to write soon. Reviews equal love. Thanks for reading!**


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